Saturday, June 11, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, the persecution
of the Sunnis continue, Barack Obama's inability to address the roots of
the Islamic State's support in Iraq continue, Moqtada al-Sadr orders
his followers to stop protesting, and much more.

NATIONAL IRAQI NEWS AGENCY reports
that the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Ammar al-Hakim,
has decried the protests Friday at the offices of various political
figures and parties.

Friday, bridges and roads
to Baghdad were closed by the US-installed prime minister of Iraq
Haider al-Abadi in an attempt to head off protests against corruption in
the government. ALSUMARIA reported Haider issued a statement stressing actions against
political officials or public institutions will be dealt with firmly.

Iraq, a major OPEC exporter which sits on one
of the world's largest oil reserves, ranks 161 out of 168 on
Transparency International's Corruption Index.The
dispute within Iraq's majority Shi'ite community began turning violent
when Sadrist protesters stormed Baghdad's heavily fortified government
district, known as the Green Zone, for a second time, on May 20. Four
demonstrators were killed.Sadr's followers
have been staging protests demanding anti-corruption reforms since
February. His rivals see in the demonstrations an attempt by the cleric
to dictate his views to the rest of the political class.
Today, ALSUMARIA reports
Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr called on those
protesting corruption by targeting the headquarters of political parties
to cease their demonstrations and wait until the end of the holy month
of Ramadan to protest. He added that regardless of when they protest,
the government forces must protect protesters, not attack them. ALL IRAQ NEWS adds that he also called on his followers to pray and practice worship.

American satellite TV channels as well as human rights organizations
have signposted the Iranian involvement in the invasion of Fallujah and
other remaining Sunni majority places. The Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi army has
been reported to be waging a war by proxy for the Iranian
‘Revolutionary’ Guard. The fact that Kassim Sulaiman, leader in the
Iranian ‘Revolutionary’ Gard, is roaming free in Iraq, giving advice to
the militia, while he is wanted internationally raises a lot of
questions, argues the head of Al-Hayat newspaper in New York.The recent shutting down of Al-Jazeera offices in Iraq is another
attempt to silence the witness. Along with other Arab media outlets,
Al-Jazeera has been accused of misinformation and fabrication of news.
The same reasons ostensibly had been given by the US army in 2003 when
they decided also to shut down the channel’s offices in Iraq because of
its daring journalism.

History will soon unveil that the invasion of Fallujah is not merely
to uproot [the Islamic State] but to strategically broaden the sectarian rule backed
by Iran on all Iraqi soil. This plan is partly about silencing all forms
of Sunni dissent against the sectarian government of Baghdad and partly
to expand the Iranian hegemony in the region.

The liberation or 'liberation' of Falluja continues. The Iraqi military
-- which includes the Shi'ite militias -- struggle to follow commands,
Shi'ite militia leaders openly criticize Haider al-Abadi, civilians are
targeted and persecuted.

Mr. Nujaifi shares the concerns of many U.S. analysts that the
largely Sunni populations in Islamic State-held cities such as Mosul and
Fallujah harbor deep suspicions of the Iraqi national army and Shiite
militias that are leading the fight in Anbar Province.Mike
Pregent, an adjunct scholar from the Hudson Institute and a former U.S.
military intelligence officer, warned that "continued U.S. support to
Iraqi units that work with, tolerate and integrate Shia militias into
their operations will reset the conditions that led to ISIS to begin
with: A disenfranchised Sunni population that would be ripe for ISIS 2.0
to exploit."Added retired Gen. Jay Garner, director of the
Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq following
the 2003 invasion: "If the Shia militia enter Mosul, there will be a
bloodbath."

The US continues to ignore the War Crimes.

Why?

Same reason they tolerated Nouri al-Maliki's persecution of the Sunnis
throughout Nouri's second term, they want to change Iraq -- not for the
Iraqi people but for the corporations. That's what the IMF invasion is
all about. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani gets that which is why he
warned against it throughout 2015 and this year.

Strikes in IraqFighter and remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery
conducted 18 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s
government:-- Near Baghdadi, two strikes destroyed two ISIL artillery pieces and an ISIL front-end loader.-- Near Fallujah, two strikes struck a large ISIL tactical
unit; destroyed nine ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL recoilless
rifles, three ISIL light machine guns, two ISIL heavy machine guns and
an ISIL anti-air artillery piece; and denied ISIL access to terrain.-- Near Habbaniyah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit
and destroyed an ISIL staging area, an ISIL command and control node,
and two ISIL storage areas and denied ISIL access to terrain.-- Near Haditha, a strike destroyed an ISIL rocket cache.-- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL supply cache and an ISIL vehicle.-- Near Mosul, three strikes struck two ISIL tactical units;
destroyed an ISIL fighting position, three ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL
vehicle bomb and an ISIL heavy machine gun; and denied ISIL access to
terrain.-- Near Qayyarah, seven strikes struck a large ISIL tactical
unit, five ISIL communication sites, an ISIL recruitment facility, and
an ISIL bed-down location; destroyed four ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL
vehicle, six ISIL rocket rails and an ISIL mortar position; and
suppressed a separate ISIL mortar position.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic
events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a
single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a
single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle
is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons
against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for
example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or
impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not
report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number
of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual
munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in
counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a
strike.

This has been Barack Obama's answer since August of 2014, daily bombings.

As has too often been the case in Iraq, progress in the military sphere
is not being matched by equivalent (or even commensurate) political
progress. I continue to see Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as a decent,
intelligent man who wants to take Iraq in what I consider to be the
right direction: toward ethno-sectarian reconciliation, more efficient
government, and a more balanced foreign policy (or at least reduced
foreign influence in Iraq). He continues to make smart moves in the
military sphere, he has taken some important steps to decentralize power
to the provinces, and his desire for a more technocratic and less
political (or cronyist) government is laudable. However, his government
continues to have little to show for all its good intentions, and that
is costing the prime minister support in a variety of quarters.[. . .]As part of this debilitating process, reconciliation among Sunni and
Shiite Arabs remains moribund. President Fuad Massoum has convened a
committee on reconciliation to try to push the process forward, but the
committee rarely meets, and when it does, it accomplishes little. Sunni
leaders are pleased with Abadi’s willingness to decentralize authority
and resources to the governors of Anbar and Salah al-Din provinces to
help with the reconstruction of Ramadi and Tikrit respectively, but
still regard it with suspicion, fearing that the prime minister is
giving them that rather than seats at the table in Baghdad.Even some of Abadi’s closest allies among the moderate Sunni leadership
are becoming frustrated that there is so little tangible progress on
reconciliation. Of course, the Sunni leadership remains badly fragmented
(even more so than the ever more fragmented Shiite leadership), but the
government makes little effort to unify them or to use proxies to
negotiate on behalf of the Sunni community. As I have written previously,
I believe it critical for the United States to take on that role
because I do not believe the Iraqis are able to do so themselves. That
point was only reinforced by my impressions from this trip.

Trying to spin pretty, Pollack sugar coated the political failure by
glorifying the military success -- or, as it turns out, 'success.'

HARI SREENIVASAN: The Reuters news agency reports
that the 17- month U.S. effort to train and build up the Iraqi army has
fallen short. Current and former U.S. officers and officials told
Reuters that despite U.S. efforts, the army’s combat capacity has barely
improved, and that the government relies too heavily on Shiite militias
to do the fighting.For more about the readiness of the Iraqi army, I am joined via Skype by Ned Parker of Reuters, who co-wrote the report.For someone watching at home, give us a little bit of the lay of the
land here. What’s the mix between the Iraqi army and the militias? Who
is doing most of the fighting?NED PARKER, REUTERS: Well, it’s a mixed bag, really.
The problem is is that the Iraqi army only has about five functioning
divisions, according to U.S. officers. And those divisions are about 60
to 65 percent capacity. So on the ground now, when fighting happens, the
Iraqi military has basically a shortage of labor. And the one good
fighting force that’s there, that’s effective from the state, is the
Iraqi Special Forces. And according to U.S. officers, those forces are
in real danger of burning out because they are the only force the state
has been able to rely upon time and time again over the last two years.

So the other force fighting alongside the special forces are militia
groups that many of them are funded by Iran. They have hard-line
sectarian ideology, and have been deeply controversial. So on the
ground, what happens is many places like north of Baghdad, in areas like
Tikrit or Beiji that were retaken from the Islamic State, by the Iraqi
special forces, as soon as the battle is over in effect, the militias
take over. And people in these areas, whether local officials, ordinary
citizens, see not the state but the militia forces as the ultimate
power.

There's no real success in Iraq because the issues that drove the rise of the Islamic State have still not been addressed.

The White House has focused solely on a military solution despite Barack
declaring June 19, 2014 that the only answer was a political solution.

In September of 2014, the RAND Corporation's Ben Connable testified
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and declared, "The thrust
of my proposition here is that the success or failure of any coalition
effort to defeat
IS -- and ultimately to stabilize Iraq -- hinges not on tactical
considerations or tribal engagement
efforts, but on the more critical issue of Sunni
Iraqi reconciliation. I believe the new anti-IS
coalition can succeed if it predicates all of its
actions in Iraq on national reconciliation between
Sunni and Shia Iraqis. If political reconciliation is
not the core aspect of an anti-IS strategy then
coalition efforts are likely to fail in the long run."

As Loveday Morris and Missy Ryan (WASHINGTON POST) observed this week:At the same time, only limited progress has been made in addressing the
frustration that Iraqi Sunnis have with their Shiite-led government, a
core reason some of them initially welcomed militants into their cities.
That jeopardizes the longevity of any territorial victories U.S.
trainers hope to achieve.